Dragon Ball is known for many things: a long-running manga series, a slew of fighting games, and loads of characters named after food. But it’s not known for survival horror games, which is what Dragon Ball: The Breakers apparently is. Announced today by Bandai Namco, the game is highly similar to Dead by Daylight, except instead of running from supernatural killers like The Trickster, you’re being hunted by all-powerful anime villains like Cell, Buu, and Frieza. It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen from a Dragon Ball game. Check out the announcement trailer now.
Dragon Ball: The Breakers is an online asymmetrical survival game that features characters from the anime series. You play either as a single Raider—a Dragon Ball villain—or one of the seven Survivors desperately trying to escape. It's not a new formula, but applied to the Dragon Ball universe, it can make for a unique and entertaining game if done right.
The villains aren’t much of a problem if you’re an overpowered hero like Son Goku or Vegeta, but to a base-level human being who’s typically caught between their fights, each one is a walking apocalypse. There’s nothing so terrifying as a being who can wipe out the building you’re hiding in with their little finger. From the gameplay, it seems the villains keep their time-honored tradition of taking on a new form as they power up—meaning they get even stronger as they capture and absorb Survivors.
As a Survivor, your main task is to find Super Time Machines and escape from this hell. Since you have no hope of fighting the Raider, running, hiding, and using tools are your only available actions. You can pick up weapons like a rocket launcher, use grappling hooks, and ride vehicles. You can custom create a Survivor or play existing Dragon Ball characters like Oolong, who hide by turning into other objects like in Prop Night.
Remember, your only hope is to find and escape on the Super Time Machine, or else you’ll wind up like Yamcha.
Dragon Ball: The Breakers is set for release on the PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. A tie-in with Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 save data is also planned. No release date has been announced apart from the game launching in 2022, with an open beta test for the PC coming soon. We'll keep you posted on prices and launch dates.
If you're up for some co-op survival while you wait, find our best prices for Dead By Daylight and Phasmophobia.
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